Tasting Life

By Kim ODonnel | July 10, 2009; 7:00 AM ET

I have a very special friend named Ethan, and in just a few days, the grownups in his life will be celebrating his first birthday. Plenty of my friends have children, but this is the first time in my adult life that I’ve been so intimate with the day-to-day, inch-by-inch development of a human tadpole.

In the few months that my friend’s diet has expanded beyond the bottled facsimile of breast milk, I’ve had the privilege of observing his experiences with this thing called food, a front-row seat at the high-chair theater, complete with bowl tossing, high-pitched screams and other primal expressions of gustatory joy.

One night, I cooked a small pot of red lentils, suggesting to his mother that it’s baby food as Mother Nature had intended, self-pureeing in about 25 minutes. She agrees to the experiment, eager for variety beyond sweet potatoes and applesauce, but me, I’ve got bigger aspirations. I’m secretly hoping that on some level the kid will intuitively understand that his auntie is trying to expose him to the world, that lentils just aren’t lentils; they’re culture and history and nutrition and agriculture. (I also plan to introduce him to the sounds of Miles Davis before his second birthday – if Mister MA doesn’t beat me to it.)

I wait for his reaction. At first, he grimaces, a sign of cranky uncertainty, but he forges ahead, masticating like a champ. He sings that “num, num, num” song and the chubby legs begin to swing in excitement beneath the counter. He grins wide, with all four teeth, and readily receives a second helping. Folks, I think we’ve got a winner.

As I prepared for today’s final entry, I thought a lot about Ethan and the purity of his experience with food. It’s free of judgment and pre-conceived notions and instead filled with wonder, joy and openness, a sensory interaction of the highest order. And now his tongue knows lentils, something my tongue didn’t experience until I was in my 20s.

Ethan may grow up to hate lentils -- and kamut bulgur and all the other things I’ve got planned for him to taste. But taste is all you can do in this life. My father was insistent that we try everything at least once before deciding we didn’t like something on our plates, and I think that’s a good rule of thumb for many aspects of life.

Try everything once. Be open to the flavors, textures and aromas that life presents you, both smooth and velvety as well as sharp and bitter. Open your mouth and taste something new everyday -- or something familiar in a different way.

When was the last time you bit into a radish? Really tasted mustard from a spoon? Listened to the crunch of a potato chip? Smelled the perfume of sauteed onions?

Life is delicious, every minute of every day. Life is also precious. So let’s get busy.

Thank you for spending three years with me in this space. Stay in touch for news and updates about the next chapter.

Keep the spirit of cooking alive!